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Radiographic scoliosis angle estimation: spline-based measurement reveals superior reliability compared to traditional COBB method.
- Source :
-
European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society [Eur Spine J] 2021 Mar; Vol. 30 (3), pp. 676-685. Date of Electronic Publication: 2020 Aug 27. - Publication Year :
- 2021
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Abstract
- Introduction and Objective: Although being standard for scoliosis curve size estimation, COBB angle measurement is well known to be inaccurate, due to a high interobserver variance in end vertebra selection and end plate contour delineation. We propose a stepwise improvement by using a spline constructed from vertebra centroids to resemble spinal curve characteristics more closely. To enhance precision even further, a neural net was trained to detect the centroids automatically.<br />Materials & Methods: Vertebra centroids in AP spinal X-ray images of varying quality from 551 scoliosis patients were manually labeled by 4 investigators. With these inputs, splines were generated and the computed curve sizes were compared to the manually measured COBB angles and to the curve estimation obtained from the neural net.<br />Results: Splines achieved a higher interobserver correlation of 0.92-0.95 compared to manual COBB measurements (0.83-0.92) and showed 1.5-2 times less variance, depending on the anatomic region. This translates into an average of 1° of interobserver measurement deviation for spline-based curve estimation compared to 3°-8° for COBB measurements. The neural net was even more precise and achieved mean deviations below 0.5°.<br />Conclusion: In conclusion, our data suggest an advantage of spline-based automated measuring systems, so further investigations are warranted to abandon manual COBB measurements.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1432-0932
- Volume :
- 30
- Issue :
- 3
- Database :
- MEDLINE
- Journal :
- European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 32856177
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s00586-020-06577-3